DISTRICT OKS ELECTION CHANGE

Menifee Union board approves by-trustee-area voting, new maps

The governing board of the Menifee Union School District on Tuesday unanimously voted to adopt a by-trustee-area election process and one of three proposed maps, moving the district a step closer to complying with state and federal voting rights acts aimed at protecting minority groups’ interests before the November election.

The decision came after the governing board held the third and final public hearing on the matter at Tuesday’s meeting. Without any comments at any of the three hearings, the board settled on a map with boundaries defined largely by major roads and geographic features:

• District 1 (Rita Peters) is essentially Quail Valley, north of Normandy Road and west of Murrieta Road.

• District 2 (Robert O’Donnell) is north of the Salt Creek Flood Control Channel and west of Murrieta Road.

• District 3 (Ron Ulibarri) is south of the flood control channel, east of Interstate 215 and north of a path along Garbani, Menifee and Holland roads.

• District 4 (Randall Freeman) is south of that path and east of I-215.

• District 5 (Jerry Bowman) is west of I-215 and south of a path along Normandy and Murrieta roads and the Salt Creek Flood Control Channel.

In all three versions of maps presented in December by consultant Jeanne Gobalet, Latino-concentrated Quail Valley made up its own district, spurring Peters to apply for an appointment to Scott Mann’s vacated seat on the board earlier this month.

Peters will run for the remaining two years of that term in November, when Bowman, Freeman and Ulibarri are up for election.

“I’m from Quail Valley, and there’s a high Hispanic content there,” Peters said. “They have special needs, so I just think each area has its own needs that need to be addressed.”

One of the other proposed maps followed current elementary school boundaries, which could change much sooner than a 2020 U.S. Census report that could force the district to review its trustee areas, depending on the results.

Gobalet said in December that racially polarized voting can be found in many district areas if people look hard enough, which has happened after the 2001 California Voting Rights Act essentially made local agencies with at-large voting vulnerable to lawsuits — and paying successful plaintiffs’ legal fees — when they dilute the strength of minority votes.

With the board approving a move away from an at-large process, as well as a map, the district’s by-trustee-area election resolution, demographic reports and final map will be submitted to the Riverside County Committee on School District Organization, which will conduct a public hearing with an eye on completing this process by the November election.